Caroline Miles -soloist in
Dvorak’s Cello Concerto

History:  1998-2001

During the period 1998-2000, Oswestry Sinfonia was the resident orchestra for the North Powys Festival of Performing Arts, held annually in September.   Works performed there included:-

1998 - Bruch Violin Concerto (with Tamsin Symons) & Rossini:  Stabat Mater

1999 - Operatic Excerpts and a performance of Richard Blackford’s
“Mirror of Perfection”

2000 - A  concert performance of Verdi’s rarely performed first opera: “Oberto - Conte di San Bonifacio”.
This was another “first” for the orchestra.  The performance featured professional soloists - Rita Cullis, Nicholas Folwell, Carole Wilson, Bradley Daley & Maria Jagusz - and
the members of the North Powys Festival Chorus.  The ensemble performed under the direction of Martin Fitzpatrick, conductor of The Royal Danish Opera, Copenhagen.

In December 2000 the orchestra gave an opportunity to the principal cellist, Caroline Miles, to be the soloist  in a performance of Dvorak’s ‘Cello Concerto.  This took place in the Marches School.
The complete programme was:
Dvorak  –   In Nature's Realm
Mozart  –  “Haffner” Symphony
Dvorak  –  Cello Concerto
 (Cellist: Caroline Miles)

Caroline trained at the Royal Academy of Music under Emma Ferrand and David Strange, and has been the orchestra’s principal cellist since joining the orchestra seven years ago. This was the second time she had played as soloist with the Sinfonia, having played the first performance of “Elegy”, a work written by local composer Margaret Wegener and especially adapted by her for solo cello and orchestra from her original scoring as a cello sonata.

In March, 2001, A concert of well-known Romantic works contrasted with a work written by local composer and Deputy Leader of Oswestry Sinfonia, Richard Williams.  Richard has played with the Sinfonia almost since its inception, and has composed several pieces which have been given performances by the orchestra.  
This piece, “The Flooding of the Lowlands”, draws on his own Welsh roots and Celtic myths.  

The complete programme was:
Williams – The Flooding of the Lowland
Elgar  –  Serenade for strings
Tchaikovsky  –  Symphony No. 5

In July, 2001, the orchestra brought two of the great works of the Romantic era to life in an exhilarating concert in Oswestry’s Leisure Centre.

Peter Bradley-Fulgoni was the soloist in Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto in the first half of the concert.  A rapturous response from the audience reflected how well this was played, by soloist and orchestra alike.

In the second half, the orchestra numbers were swollen to over 70 by extra brass, woodwind and percussion for a performance of Mahler’s 1st Symphony, “The Titan”.